Regarding bytea column in Posgresql

Hi,

I have been assigned to a product that uses Postgresql 9.3 as backend database. I am new to postgresql.
The product provides chat functionality between the uses and the completed chats are stored in the database table in a 'bytea' column in the form of xml. When I query the data from this column I see xml file with text data. I have couple of queries:

1. Is 'bytea' column intended for storing text data?

2. Typically a chat can have text data with several special characters (which can be represented in multi bytes), how these characters can be stored in a bytea column and retrieved back properly?

Thanks,
Pushkar